The field of this disclosure relates generally to turbine discs and, more particularly, to a turbine disc assembly and methods of fabricating the same.
Many known gas turbine assemblies include a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. Gases (e.g., air) flow into the compressor and are compressed. The compressed gas flow is then discharged into the combustor, mixed with fuel, and ignited to generate combustion gases. The combustion gas flow is channeled from the combustor through the turbine.
At least some known turbines include a plurality of rotor blades that are driven by the combustion gas flow. As such, the rotor blades are generally subjected to higher-temperature operating conditions than other portions of the turbine assembly. To facilitate preventing the rotor blades from overheating, at least some known rotor blades are cooled by channeling a flow of cooling gas through a cooling circuit defined inside of each rotor blade. However, it may be difficult to distribute the cooling gas flow amongst the rotor blades to ensure that each rotor blade is adequately cooled.